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Thursday, June 07, 2012

22 Years of Johnny Clegg

The day after I graduated from high school, 22 years ago, what did I do? I decided to take some of my graduation money and head over to the Sound Warehouse, a music store near my school. What I loved about this store is that they had a "money back guarantee" on new music that the store recommended and advertised. The normal policy is that once you take off the plastic wrapping, you can't exchange the cassette for a different one. But this record store had a money back guarantee, along with a discount rate ($5.99).

One of the albums in this special promotion was Johnny Clegg and Savuka's Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World. As you can see above, the album cover is catchy (it's my all-time favourite album, as well as all-time favourite album cover). I had heard of Johnny Clegg and Savuka before. He was hugely popular in France and was on the cover of French music magazines in 1988. I actually thought he was French! I even saw his music video "Take My Heart Away" played on MTV in 1988. I thought the song was okay, but it did not inspire me to go out and buy his album Shadow Man. With this low price for his new CD and a money-back guarantee, I figured, "Why not?" I had plenty of money from graduation gifts given by family and people at church. This was a small investment, so I bought a cassette and hurried home to listen to it.

From the opening tribal chanting of "One (Hu)Man, One Vote", I was hooked! I had never heard anything like it before. The entire album was a breath of fresh air. It was an initiation into a new world of music and sounds. The music deeply resonated within me and it wasn't long before I bought Johnny Clegg's other cassettes: Shadow Man and Third World Child. I learned that he had a previous band, Juluka, and I sought out those cassettes but only saw a CD of Scatterlings, which became the very first CD that I bought (I didn't even have my own CD player and had to sneak listens on my dad's stereo).

This new music discovery really opened up my world and resonated deep within my soul. I was euphorically blissful whenever I listened to Johnny Clegg's three albums with his band Savuka (which is Zulu for "We have awakened" or "We have arisen"). I probably get the same rush from listening to his music that drug users get from taking a hit of their drug of choice. I've never needed to use or experiment with drugs, because 80s pop music gave me that good feeling vibe that we all want for ourselves. Now, the 90s were here and I was moving in a more international direction. My love of Johnny Clegg's music led to my buying Midnight Oil's Blue Sky Mining in 1990 and becoming a fan of this great Aussie band (I had also heard of them in 1988 with their MTV video hits "The Dead Heart" and "Beds Are Burning"). In the 1990s, I'd buy all kinds of African music...Kotoja, Manu Dibango, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Aster Aweke, Youssou N'Dour, and Angelique Kidjo, to name a few. Then there was Deep Forest (French D.J.'s putting pygmy singing to music, similar to what Enigma did with Gregorian chants).

Over the years, I managed to amass a complete collection of Johnny Clegg's albums...both as cassettes, then again with Compact Discs. I've seen him in concert in 1990, 1994 (at a mall in Sandton, South Africa!), 1996, 2004, 2011, and he's coming back to Portland in August to play at the Oregon Zoo as their summer concert series (he's shares billing with Ladysmith Black Mambazu, though I'd rather just see Johnny Clegg for the entire time). I got to meet him four times now, including giving him my personal license plates from Virginia and Utah that had "SAVUKA" on it.

I did not learn until 1998, though, that Johnny Clegg's birthday is June 7th. What an amazing coincidence! In 1990, I happened to buy his album on his birthday, on a whim (I did not even know about his album before I walked into Sound Warehouse that day). He's had new albums in 1993 (Heat, Dust, and Dreams), 1997 (Crocodile Love), 2002 (New World Survivor), 2006 (One Life), and 2010 (Human). Each year that there's a new Johnny Clegg album was a pretty good year for me. He's the only artist where I still get excited when I learn that a new album is about to be released. I have to have it AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, even though in some cases, they were not released in the U.S. and I had to special order them with his American online fan club.

It's always amazing to me when I meet an American who has heard of Johnny Clegg. Most people have not, so when I meet someone who has heard of him, they automatically come across as "cultured." This was the case with my fellow BYU roommate during the Washington Seminar, Matt Baker. He heard of Johnny Clegg, even though he's from a small town in Utah. Janell, another friend during that internship also heard of Johnny Clegg because her father had lived in South Africa and she visited him as a teenager. She used to remark that I seemed like a contradiction to her because she could not understand how someone who listened to Johnny Clegg could also listen to Britney Spears. I just love music, even though Johnny Clegg's music would be top of the line, high quality music and Britney is merely amusing pop fluff.

A part of me wishes that Johnny Clegg's music would be better known and more popular in the U.S. Some of his songs have appeared in movies such as Rain Man, Career Opportunities, Opportunity Knocks, George of the Jungle, Krippendorf's Tribe, and Invictus. I wish he was well known enough to inspire an English language biography (I have a French language one), a biopic (Paul Reiser would be the perfect actor to play him, though a younger unknown actor would be more likely), and perhaps even a Broadway show based on his music (as have been done with Billy Joel's, Abba's, and Frankie Valli's music).

Most of all, though, I'm just extremely grateful that Johnny Clegg made music his life's work (he was an anthropology professor when he formed Juluka in the 1970s). His music, above all others, has made a HUGE impact on my life. In fact, I could not imagine what my life would have been like without his music in my life. And it all started 22 years ago when I took a "risk" and bought Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World. Needless to say, I did not return to the store to ask for a refund! Happy 59th birthday, Johnny!!

Sansego

A word I created from the French word Sans (meaning "without") and the English word ego. Basically, that sums up my spiritual beliefs. To be closer to God, we must transcend our egos and recognize we are all "one in the spirit."

My 7 Favourite Films of 2007

Gorgeous!

My Hot List (of Dream Women)

1. Audrey Tautou

2. Emily Blunt

3. Frances O'Connor

4. Thandie Newton

5. Natalie Portman

6. Shannyn Sossamon

7. Michelle Yeoh

8. Gwen Stefani

9. Zoe Saldana

10. Halle Berry

Nonconformists of the Year

The following photos represent my selection for Nonconformist of the Year, that I started doing in 1992 to honour the person who did an unexpected act, which went against the grain of conventional thinking.

1992

Bill Clinton

1993

Al Gore

1994

Nelson Mandela

1995

Lady Diana Spencer

1996

John F. Kennedy, Jr.

1997

Louis Freeh

1998

Russ Feingold

1999

Jesse Ventura

2000

John McCain

2001

Bill Maher

2002

Dave Eggers

2003

Howard Dean

2004

Joseph Darby

2005

Cindy Sheehan

2006

Al Gore

2007

Buddhist Monks of Burma

2008

Barack Obama

2009

Alicia Silverstone

2010

Julian Assange

2011

Mohamed Bouazizi

Best descriptions of GWB

1. He's a corporation masquerading as a human being -- Ralph Nader

2. He's a blind man in a room full of deaf people -- Paul O'Neill

3. Poor George...born on third and thought he hit a triple -- Ann Richards

4. You could easily imagine him owning the local car dealership down the road -- Barack Obama

5. Bush is the worst president ever...He is the worst president in American history -- Helen Thomas

Favourite Presidents

1. Thomas Jefferson

2. John Fitzgerald Kennedy

3. Abraham Lincoln

4. George Washington

5. Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Worst Presidents Ever

1. George W. Bush

2. Richard M. Nixon

3. Lyndon B. Johnson

4. Ronald W. Reagan

5. Warren G. Harding

Cool words I love

Kundalini

Shosoloza

Zenani

Serendipity

Psychokinesis

Recommended CDs by my favourite Irish musicians

1. All That You Can't Leave Behind -- U2

2. A Day Without Rain -- Enya

3. The Bells of Dublin -- The Chieftains

4. I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got -- Sinead O'Connor

5. Herding Cats -- Gaelic Storm

My All Time Favourite Music Videos

1. Nothing Compares 2 U -- Sinead O'Connor

2. Coldhearted -- Paula Abdul

3. Smoke -- Natalie Imbruglia

4. Stay -- Lisa Loeb

5. Soak Up The Sun -- Sheryl Crow

All Time Favourite Films

1. The Sound of Music

2. The Star Wars Saga

3. Dead Poet's Society

4. Casualties of War

5. Love and Other Catastrophes

6. E.T.

7. Forrest Gump

8. Jurassic Park

9. Sarafina!

10. Roxanne

All Time Favourite Albums

1. Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World -- Johnny Clegg and Savuka

2. Earth and Sun and Moon -- Midnight Oil

3. All That You Can't Leave Behind -- U2

4. Le Baiser -- Indochine

5. Wommat (The Guide) -- Youssou N'Dour

6. Born in the USA -- Bruce Springsteen

7. Tracy Chapman -- Tracy Chapman

8. Graceland -- Paul Simon

9. The Rising -- Bruce Springsteen

10. Autoamerican -- Blondie

11. Pilgrim -- Eric Clapton

12. Thriller -- Michael Jackson

13. Crazy Sexy Cool -- TLC

14. True Blue -- Madonna

15. Whitney -- Whitney Houston

All Time Favourite Songs

1. What A Wonderful World -- Louis Armstrong

2. Sailing -- Christopher Cross

3. A Better Man -- Keb' Mo'

4. Woman Be My Country -- Johnny Clegg and Savuka

5. Time After Time -- Cyndi Lauper

6. Woman -- John Lennon

7. Man In the Mirror -- Michael Jackson

8. Hey Jude -- The Beatles

9. Imagine -- John Lennon

10. Stairway to Heaven -- Led Zepplin

My 6 Fave Songs of 2006

1. Do I Make You Proud? -- Taylor Hicks

2. Unwritten -- Natasha Bedingfield

3. Jump -- Madonna

4. Waiting on the World to Change -- John Mayer

5. Bad Day -- Daniel Powter

6. What's Left of Me -- Nick Lachey

My 6 Fave Films of 2006

1. An Inconvenient Truth

2. The Da Vinci Code

3. Blood Diamond

4. V For Vendetta

5. The Devil Wears Prada

6. Casino Royale

Three Worst Films of 2006

1. Borat

2. Basic Instinct 2

3. Children of Men

Favourite Madonna Singles

1. Live to Tell

2. Vogue

3. What it Feels Like For a Girl

4. Jump

5. Who's that Girl

6. Into the Groove

7. Angel

8. This Used to Be My Playground

9. Holiday

10. Die Another Day

Favourite Madonna Albums

1. True Blue (1986)

2. Like a Prayer (1989)

3. Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005)

4. American Life (2003)

5. Bedtime Stories (1994)

6. Madonna (1983)

7. Music (2001)

8. Ray of Light (1998)

9. Like A Virgin (1984)

10. Erotica (1992)

Favourite Madonna Music Videos

1. Vogue

2. Material Girl

3. Into the Groove

4. Papa Don't Preach

5. La Isla Bonita

6. Human Nature

7. Take A Bow

8. Nothing Really Matters

9. Rain

10. Beautiful Stranger

Personal Timeline

Dec 1971 -- Born;1977 -- "Star Wars" craze begins!;1978 -- Wendy is my first crush, setting a pattern of me falling for girls I find more intelligent than myself;1980 -- Sharon Dunn becomes my first penpal when I move to Utah;Dec 1980 -- Baptized into RLDS Church;1984 -- Meet Nicholas Smith in 7th grade, who becomes one of my best friends;1985-1988 -- Lived in Germany;1988 -- Acted in two plays, "Our Town" and "You Can't Take It With You.";Summer 1989 -- Wrote "Diabolic Incognito" for a Young Novelist competition;November 1989 -- Inspired with story idea for next novel;June 1990 -- Graduated high school, then enlisted in the Navy;January 1991 -- First solo trip via Greyhound to visit my best friend in Omaha and my grandparents in Kansas;March 1991 -- Went off to Basic Training;September 1991 -- Arrived in Italy for my 3 year assignment;October 1992 -- My first Eurail trip;April 1993 -- An odd coincidence brings me back to God;August 1994 -- My trip to South Africa becomes my most significant spiritual experience;November 1994 -- Meet my other best friend, Nathan Hagman;January 1996 -- Honorable Discharge from the Navy;May 1996 -- Car is totalled in an accident;August 1997 -- Start my college career at BYU;April-May 1999 -- Road trip to Pacific Northwest makes a huge impression on me that this is where I want to settle someday;January-April 2000 -- Internship with Vice President Gore;December 2004 -- Finished writing second novel "Seasons of Silent War" (still haven't found an agent for it);August 2006 -- Move to Portland, Oregon--finally!!;December 2006 -- Finished my long-delayed Bachelor's Degree in International Politics